The presidential oil-spill commission said Tuesday that the federal government should require tougher regulation, stiffer fines and a new industry-run safety organization, in its final report released as part of an effort to prevent a repeat of the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year

Former Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), one of the commission's two co-chairs, said the Deepwater Horizon accident was "both foreseeable and preventable," and reflected a failure on the part of both three individual companies and the federal government.

"I am sad to say that part of the answer is the fact that our government helped let it happen," Graham said. "Our regulators were consistently outmatched."

The panel proposes several safeguards aimed at strengthening regulators' control over the oil and gas industry, including establishing an independent safety agency within the Interior Department that would be headed by someone for a fixed term in order to insulate the appointee from political interference. Graham said such a person should have "a background of both science and management."

It also calls for funding the regulatory agencies that oversee offshore drilling with fees from the companies who are tapping into the nation's petroleum resource, saying in its executive summary, "Funding sources could include a regulatory fee on new and existing leases or an increase in the inspection feeds already collected by the Department of Interior."

William K. Reilly, the commission's other co-chairman, emphasized that it would be a mistake to focus just on the three companies involved in last year's accident. "The solution to the problem has to be industry wide."

The final report also calls for a "risk-based" regulatory approach now used by nations such as Norway and the U.K., in which companies will have to demonstrate they have fully evaluated the risks associated with a particular well rather than deepwater drilling in a general area.

Borrowing an idea from the nuclear power industry, the oil-spill commission backs the creation of an industry-run organization modeled on the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations that was created after the Three-Mile Island disaster. That organization helps establish best practices and technology for reactors.

The commission also recommends boosting the liability cap on oil spills, which is $75 million for environmental and economic damage. BP has said that it would disregard the cap.

The commission's report says that Interior should also include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the decision-making process about where and how to conduct oil and gas leasing. If Interior officials were to reject NOAA's recommendations, they would have to say in writing why that would be in the national interest.

"Science has not been given a sufficient seat at the table," Graham said. "Actually, that is a significant understatement. It has been virtually shut out."